1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electric power communication device, an electric power communication system, an electric power communication method, and a program.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the WiMedia Distributed MAC Specification, a method is described for building an autonomous distributed wireless network by having individual wireless communication devices exchange beacon signals on a specified cycle. A method is also described for forming a superframe cycle on a specified cycle, placing a beacon period that includes a plurality of beacon slots in the beginning portion of the superframe cycle, and determining which beacon slot each of the wireless communication devices will use. Note that it is assumed that transmission and receiving of the beacons will be performed by non-directional antennas.
In addition, an electric power transmission technology for transmitting electric power among a plurality of electric power communication devices has recently been proposed. According to the electric power transmission technology, electric power transmission from one of the electric power communication devices to another of the electric power communication devices is performed in a case where the plurality of the electric power communication devices are disposed such that they have specific positional relationships. Further, according to the electric power transmission technology, it is possible, for example, for transmission of several milliwatts to several hundred milliwatts to be performed within a short range of several meters. Note that a method for managing positions of a plurality of communication devices is described in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. JP-A-2005-62952.